


The True Dragon

by babe_without_the_arms



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Dream sequence with a lot of death, Gen, Let Albert Say Fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 20:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11790768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babe_without_the_arms/pseuds/babe_without_the_arms
Summary: Some initial explorations into an enormous question posed by TPTR: Why, on earth, did Albert stay with Gordon?





	The True Dragon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughingpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/gifts), [Amatara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amatara/gifts).



> The dream sequence is adapted from a story frequently circulated in the fields of public health, ministry, and social work.

\------------------------------------------------------

[February 9, 1977. San Francisco Field Office.]

The phone rang on Albert's desk.

“Rosenfield,” he barked.

“SPECIAL AGENT ALBERT ROSENFIELD! REAL GLAD I CAUGHT YOU! THIS IS REGION 1 DIRECTOR GORDON COLE, CALLING FROM HQ! WONDERING IF YOU'VE GOT A MINUTE TO TALK! GOT A FEW QUESTIONS FOR YOU!”

Fuck, _headquarters_. He had a pretty good idea what this phone call was going to be about.

“No, Director, I don't, and if this is about what I think it is, you can--”

“HELLO? ARE YOU THERE? YOU'LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP, HEARING’S GONE!”

 _“No, I don't have time to talk to you!”_ Albert said, louder.

“OH, THERE YOU ARE! NOW, ALBERT--I TRUST IT'S ALL RIGHT IF I CALL YOU ALBERT--”

“No, it _isn’t_ \--”

“--I’VE GOT SOMETHING HERE SENT OVER FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE DETAILING A SERIES OF INCIDENTS, THE MOST RECENT OF WHICH OCCURRED LAST MONDAY WITH YOUR FIELD SUPERVISOR! LOOKS LIKE YOU SIGNED THE TESTIMONIAL FORM, ATTESTING THAT THE STORY ON PAPER HERE IS HOW IT WENT DOWN! DOES THAT SOUND RIGHT TO YOU?”

Albert rubbed his temples in pained silence.

“I'LL TAKE THAT AS A YES!” There was a sound of rustling papers on the other end. “YOU'VE BEEN PLAYING QUITE THE GAME OF FIELD OFFICE HOPSCOTCH, ALBERT! NEW YORK, DENVER, CLEVELAND--ALL IN JUST A LITTLE OVER A YEAR! AND NOW SAN FRANCISCO’S GIVING YOU THE BOOT--”

“No one’s ‘booting’ me anywhere,” Albert barked back. “Maybe you can't read either? I filed for a _transfer._ ”

“AT THE FIELD HEAD’S REQUEST! A.K.A., SHE'S GIVING YOU THE BOOT, JUST LIKE EVERYWHERE ELSE! Betty, you’re a lifesaver.” There’s a sound of Gordon sipping at some sort of beverage. “NOW I SEE YOU HAVEN’T GOTTEN ANY OFFERS! HATE TO TELL YOU ALBERT, BUT AN AGENT WITH FOUR TRANSFER REQUESTS IN A TWO YEAR PERIOD ISN'T A HOT COMMODITY WHEN IT COMES TIME FOR FIELD OFFICES TO PICK TEAMS!”

As if he didn’t know all of this already. Albert leaned back in his chair while Cole listed off his Bureau track record and stared angrily at the FBI seal on the wall above his desk, straight into the bottomless fucking black hole that had been his career in the Bureau up to this point, and thought about how he was going to convince Cole that Gutierrez was an insufferable, incompetent moron and that he had just been trying to do his job thoroughly and _properly_ so that the kid on his exam table would actually be given justice for his death and not just become another name in an endless archive of unsolved murders. But no, apparently putting principles above Bureau policies equaled insubordination, and once again he was going to have to explain himself to some hamfisted bigwig who would want Albert to capitulate to regulation and protocol--

And then, he had a sudden, momentous, and miraculous realization that he just didn’t _give_ a fuck what the Bureau, or this Cole person, thought of him. He lifted his middle finger to the gaping, thankless void that was the Federal Bureau of Incompetence in a brilliantly spiritual and liberating _“fuck you,"_ and then leaned forward onto his desk and prepared himself for one of his spectacularly longwinded insults. If he was going to finally be fired--released, really--he might as well go out with a bang, and the last word.

“HELLO? ALBERT? ARE YOU STILL THERE?”

“With _all_ due respect, Director Cole.” Albert began. “As I believe I have articulated my version of events in that report with such _pristine_ clarity that even the dullest knuckle-dragging troll at headquarters could comprehend it, you will no doubt understand from said report that Gutierrez is, in my opinion, an imbecile, and therefore entirely overqualified for her position as a field office supervisor in the FBI. Furthermore, as a regional director I’m sure you possess all of the _best_ traits of your field office drool monkeys, and consequently I feel exactly zero responsibility to explain my actions to you or anyone else you might send my way. Therefore, in the interest of time, I shall do both of us a favor and do your job for you, and get to the point of this conversation. Why are you calling?” Albert snapped. ”Did I win another free workplace conduct training from HR? Am I being demoted to desk duty, or is the Bureau graciously donating an indefinitely long vacation of mandatory unpaid time off? Or is headquarters finally going to commit to something for once and fire me?”

Truthfully, he felt nothing right now except relief. He leaned back, stacked his legs on his desk, lifted the cup of coffee on his desk to his lips.

Freedom was in sight.

“ACTUALLY, ALBERT, I WANT TO GIVE YOU A PROMOTION!”

Albert blinked and choked on his coffee.

“What?”

“ARE YOU DEAF? I SAID I WANT TO PROMOTE YOU OUT OF FIELD LABS!”

“I _heard_ you--I just don't understand what the hell you're talking about! Promoted to _what_?”

“I DON'T WANT TO SAY TOO MUCH ABOUT IT OVER THE PHONE! FOR NOW LET'S JUST SAY I'M PUTTING TOGETHER A SPECIAL PROJECT! A NEW KIND OF TASKFORCE, AND I WANT YOU ON IT!” There was a pause while the sound of a filing cabinet opening and closing came through from Gordon’s end. “I'VE GOT YOUR FILE HERE, AND I HAVE TO SAY, I LIKE WHAT I SEE, ALBERT, I REALLY DO! IN FACT YOU'RE EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR! I WANT TO KNOW WHERE FORENSICS HAS BEEN KEEPING YOU! YOU KNOW, TELLING YOUR FIELD SUPERVISOR TO GO--WELL, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SAID--IT WAS PROBABLY THE BEST THING YOU COULD HAVE DONE! OTHERWISE WHO KNOWS WHEN I WOULD HAVE SEEN YOUR FILE!”

Albert squinted—he didn’t much like the idea of being “exactly what I’m looking for” for anyone at headquarters—in fact, he tried his best to be pretty much the opposite of what the Bureau wanted in a special agent, down to the “insubordinate” refusal to carry a gun on his person. “Yeah. So what exactly is it about my file that makes you think I'm the right person for this project? The record number of AFO report filings in a single year?”

“YOU'VE GOT THE STUFF, ALBERT! NOT MUCH MORE TO SAY ABOUT IT THAN THAT! I JUST KNOW WHAT I NEED, AND I KNOW WHEN I'VE FOUND IT!”

“Right.” Albert scowled. “Sounds like you need someone to work in Archives, and you're trying to sugarcoat it while leveraging me with this incident report bullshit. I'm not an idiot. So tell me, Director, what exactly would I be doing on this ‘taskforce,’ besides shredding embarrassing COINTELPRO documents in an office basement in Washington?”

“SAME THING YOU'RE DOING NOW, REALLY! EXCEPT WITH A LOT MORE RESOURCES, A LOT LESS SUPERVISION, AND A MUCH BIGGER PAYCHECK!”

“Yeah." Albert smirked humorlessly. "You’ll understand when I say this all sounds a little too good to be true, Director.”

“PLEASE CALL ME GORDON! AND I CAN GUARANTEE THE CASES WILL BE A HECK OF A LOT MORE INTERESTING THAN WHATEVER GUTIERREZ HAS YOU ON RIGHT NOW! LET ME GUESS, COOKIE CUTTER HOMICIDES? AND I’M SURE 90% OF IT COULD HAVE GONE TO STATE POLICE!”

Albert glanced down at the case files he was working on—cookie cutter was one one way of putting it. Mindnumbingly boring was another.

“LISTEN, ALBERT! NO NEED TO GIVE AN ANSWER RIGHT NOW! I’LL SEND ALONG A PACKET VIA INTER-OFFICE MAIL FOR YOU TO LOOK AT, AND THEN WE’LL TOUCH BASE! GOOD TALKING WITH YOU!”

“I never said I wanted you to send me _anything_ \--”

Gordon hung up.

\----------------------------------------------------  
[February 12, 1977.]

A very young, sweet sounding woman answered the phone.

"Regional Director Cole's office, this is Betty."

"This is Albert Rosenfield, calling about--"

"Oh, Dr. Rosenfield, wonderful. He's been expecting your call. I'll put you through right now."

Click. A few seconds passed while Albert drew anxiously on his cigarette.

“COLE HERE!”

Albert read from the file open on his desk. _“’SPECIAL TASK FORCE BLUE ROSE is a joint initiative of the FBI Counterintelligence and Violent Crimes divisions, developed in order to build a cohesive and coordinated approach to criminal investigations involving extraterrestrial, extratemporal, xenopsychological, or otherwise paranormal phenomena._ ” He dropped the file onto the desk. “What the fuck is this, Gordon.”

“IT’S YOUR NEW JOB!”

“Is this your idea of a joke?”

“KNOCK KNOCK!”

“I—what? No, I _SAID_ , IS THIS SOME KIND OF JOKE?”

“CORRECT RESPONSE WOULD HAVE BEEN ‘WHO’S THERE,’ BUT I’LL LET IT SLIDE TODAY SINCE YOU’RE JUST GETTING STARTED! AND I HOPE YOU’RE ON A SECURE LINE, BECAUSE EVERYTHING YOU JUST READ IS CLASSIFIED FOUR LEVELS ABOVE TOP SECRET, ALBERT!”

““You—okay, you know what, we’re done here. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“SOUNDS LIKE YOU DIDN’T HEAR ME THE FIRST TIME, SO I’LL REITERATE! THAT FILE YOU’VE GOT IN YOUR HANDS IS CLASSIFIED FOUR LEVELS ABOVE TOP SECRET! MEANING YOU’RE IN IT, ALBERT, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT! WELCOME TO TASKFORCE BLUE ROSE!”

There was a moment of silence while Albert caught up to the full connotation of what Gordon had just said.

“I wasn’t aware that coercion was standard procedure for recruitment at headquarters.” Albert seethed.

“IT ISN’T COERCION IF YOU’VE ALREADY AGREED!”

“Are you—what? When did I _ever_ agree to this?”

“PROBABLY RIGHT AROUND THREE DAYS FROM NOW, I’D GUESS! NOW ALBERT, I’VE GOT A QUESTION FOR YOU! WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE MEDIEVAL CHAN AND ZEN MASTERS OF EAST ASIA?”

“...”

“I GUESSED AS MUCH! ALBERT, I'M GOING TO TELL YOU A STORY IF THAT’S ALL RIGHT WITH YOU!”

Albert's patience for this conversation and this person was now gone, if he ever had any in the first place. “No, it _isn’t_. Look, I know regional supervisors have a lot of fucking free time to twiddle their thumbs and whistle Dixie, but I have to actually _be in the lab_ \--”

“THERE WAS A MAN BY THE NAME OF SHOKO! HE WAS OBSESSED WITH DRAGONS!”

Okay, conversation over. Goodbye. Albert slammed the phone down onto the console—and it bounced off onto the desk. He tried again, shoving the phone into the cradle, but the call wouldn't cut out.

“THIS FELLA WAS A REAL EXPERT ON DRAGONS! KNEW MORE ABOUT DRAGONS THAN ANYONE! STUDIED ‘EM, COLLECTED PICTURES OF ‘EM THAT HE PUT ALL OVER HIS HOUSE! LOVED THOSE PICTURES MORE THAN HIS OWN FAMILY!”

Albert jabbed the disconnect button with his finger—no use, and Gordon blared on in the background about his Puff the Magic Dragon storytime bullshit while Albert stabbed angrily at every button he could find on the telephone console.

“TURNS OUT A REAL DRAGON SAW THAT SHOKO HAD ALL THESE PICTURES OF DRAGONS IN HIS HOUSE! SO THE REAL DRAGON DECIDED TO GO AND PAY HIM A VISIT! NOW LET ME ASK YOU SOMETHING, ALBERT! AFTER ALL THOSE YEARS OF LOOKING AT PICTURES OF DRAGONS, WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS SHOKO FELLA DID WHEN THE TRUE DRAGON SHOWED UP?”

Albert gave up, smacking the top of his desk angrily with his hand. _Fuck_ this, he was done. Fuck the Bureau, fuck headquarters, fuck Gordon Cole, fuck Shoko, fuck the true dragon, fuck this _life_ where three more young people showed up murdered on his exam table for every killer he managed to put in prison.

He bristled with an electric current coursing through his body that made his ears buzz and his body itch. He picked up the phone and snapped into the receiver.

“I don't know Gordon, you _imbecile_ , you--”

“WHAT WAS THAT?”

“I said, _I don't know_!”

“WHAT?”

“I DON’T KNOW!”

“YOU'LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP!”

 _“I SAID I DON’T KNOW WHAT HE DID WHEN THE TRUE FUCKING DRAGON CAME, GORDON!”_ Albert screamed into the phone.

There was a long silence while Albert came back to himself. He realized he was now standing. There was an electric buzzing in his ears, he was sweating through his clothes, and he had a death grip on the telephone--he was so livid, he was on the verge of tears—

And he had never felt this before--not after being knocked senseless by childhood bullies, or even after seeing the most revoltingly unrepentant murderer of his career on trial, acquitted right in front of him--but he could hit Gordon just then. If Gordon Cole had been standing in front of him, he could have truly, honest to God, beat the shit out of him.

Albert heard something like the sound of a drink being poured into a glass on Gordon’s end.

“INTERESTING ANSWER, ALBERT! NOW I WANT YOU TO GO HOME AND THINK ABOUT THAT! CONSIDER IT YOUR FIRST ASSIGNMENT FROM ME!”

“Fuck. YOU.” Albert’s voice shook. “Fuck you, fuck your taskforce, _find someone else_.”

He slammed down the phone.

\---------------------------------------  
[February 15, 1977.]

Albert is in his lab, his special, private place of respite from bureaucratic and... for a lack of a more palatable term, other currently uncategorizable influences that would seek to arbitrate who he should be, where he should be, and how he should be. He has been hiding here, in his bunker made of tools, physical bodies, and scientific method, from the psycho-spiritual fallout that would inevitably come from a phone conversation like the one he had with Gordon Cole three days prior if he allowed his mind to stray from his work for more than even a few hours at a time.

However, such a fallout will come to you unannounced and uninvited, if you do not go to meet it on your own terms, and its agents of change will readily ignore your DO NOT DISTURB signs on your laboratory door when you're trying to work uninterrupted.

“Who--!” Albert yelled, spinning around from his work when he heard someone enter his lab without permission.

“Hello, Dr. Rosenfield.”

“Who are you?” He barked.

The stranger flashed his badge. “Agent Chet Desmond.”

Albert looked him over, and his temper receded slightly. Dark hair, cut jawline, strongly built—kind of an Elvis Presley look—and a suit and trench combination that gave Albert’s own wardrobe a run for its money.

Albert turned his eyes back down to his work and did his best to look suitably unimpressed, unavailable, and hard to get.

“What do you want?”

Chet held up a black credit card between two fingers. “I’m supposed to take you to lunch. Courtesy of Region 1 headquarters.”

Aaaand his temper was back three-fold. Nope. Never mind the chiseled jaw, he worked for Cole. Fuck this guy.

He took off his goggles, threw them down onto the table in frustration. “Tell me, _Agent Desmond_. What is it about ‘Fuck you, find someone else’ that Gordon Cole does not understand?”

“You’ll have to ask him that.” Chet crossed his arms and leaned down onto the table with his elbows, put a business card for Cole’s direct line on the table. “In the meantime, you’re supposed to talk to me.” He looked idly at a pile of documents Albert had sitting out. Albert snatched them away angrily, and Chet looked back up at him with a calm expression, although there was something faintly akin to mirth in his eyes.

“Not happening. Goodbye. Get out.”

Chet straightened, shrugged. “Look, the sooner you talk to me, the sooner I’ll leave. If you want, I’ll even try to convince Gordon to stop contacting you and find someone else.” He put the credit card back in his wallet. “No guarantees he’ll listen, though.”

Albert scowls.

An hour later they’re in a nearby restaurant, and Albert’s chainsmoking like a motherfucker, wondering how he allowed himself to get coerced into this conversation. Or to allow it to continue, or that matter.

Part of it is definitely not because Agent Desmond is objectively hot.

“So.” Chet swallows, puts his cup down on the saucer. “A pacifist, huh?”

“Yeah,” Albert answers, almost like a challenge.

“How’s that working for you in the Bureau?” Chet asks calmly.

“Just fine, thanks.” Albert bit back, drawing on his cigarette nervously.

“Hmm.” Chet intoned. “So which koan did Cole give you?”

“What?”

“Was it Shoko? You seem like a Shoko.”

An electric jolt shocks through Albert at the name. He bristles angrily.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Chet’s about to respond when the waiter comes by, temporarily interrupting them to refill their coffee. Chet nods his thanks to the waiter, pours milk into his warm up. Continues when they’re alone again.

“Look. There’s two kinds of people in the world, Dr. Rosenfield. Those that throw punches and those that take them.”

“How cute. Where’d you read that? Back of a Post Toasties box?”

Chet gestures at Albert with his coffee cup, almost like a toast. “It’s stuff like that that tells me you’re the second kind.”

Oh, _fuck_ him. “How presumptuous.”

“It’s not the only thing. There’s others,” Chet said, calmly.

“Oh yeah? And what might those be?”

“You can't commit to the ethical gray areas required in your work, for one.”

"You know what? Fuck you. I never asked your opinion on my principles. If you or your _boss_ have a problem with them, then please accept my ever-present offer of leaving me the fuck alone.”

“Never said it was a problem.” Desmond shrugged, sipping from his coffee. “Do you think it’s a problem?”

“What?” Albert snapped.

“I’m asking if you think it’s a problem that you’re the kind of person to take punches.”

Very, very offputting, the way this Desmond character seems to talks in circles. “No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. Not that I would ever feel the need to explain myself to you. Or to Cole, since I assume you’re going to report this entire conversation back to him.”

“Gordon’s pretty hands-off with me. I don’t tell him much. Kind of lets me do my own thing. I won’t be reporting back anything other than that we had lunch, and whether you gave me a yes or a no.”

“Well, Agent Desmond, if that’s all you need to know in order to leave, let me repeat myself one more time: No. Capital letters. Period.”

“Hmm.” Desmond intoned again, looking at Albert carefully, almost transparently--twelve years later, while doing a forensics sweep on an empty lot in a trailer park, Albert would look back on their work together and realize he had never heard Chet say more at one time than what he was about to say in this seedy little diner in San Francisco.

Desmond turned and looked out the window for a long moment, frowning slightly. When he finally looked back to Albert, his eyes seemed darker, and there was a kind of shadow on his face.

“You ever asked yourself the question ‘Then what’, Dr. Rosenfield?”

“I’m sorry?”

“In the bathroom mirror, maybe, after you closed your last case, only to be given two cases more the next day and another one reopened.” Desmond watched Albert penetratingly, but his own face revealed almost none of his feelings. “Or maybe after you filed for a transfer the last time. ‘Then what?’ Maybe you thought you’d get to that new office and it would be everything you wanted it to be—if you even knew what that was--and it would never change, and you would work there for the rest of your life. But then what? What would come after that? Or maybe you get to that new job, a new case, and it’s like every other situation you’ve been in before, so you quit and find some other place to be. But that same question keeps coming back. Then what? Then what? Then what? It never stops. You keep following that question your whole life, into old age if you’re lucky, and then the big Then What appears. It just gets bigger and darker.”

Chet dropped a hand over the top of his face, spreading his fingers out and downward over his eyes. “Maybe you don’t like the words ‘extraterrestrial’ or ‘paranormal.’ That’s fine. Think of it as a ‘Then What’ instead, if that makes you feel better. But it’s all the same.” He put his hand down. “That’s what Gordon wants to do with this Blue Rose project. Chase the ‘Then Whats’ on our own terms. And that’s what I mean when I say there’s two kinds of people in the world, Dr. Rosenfield. Are you going to let that darkness knock you around senseless? Or are you going to meet that dragon and go out swinging?”

There was a long silence while Albert watched him wordlessly, trying to keep his expression immobile, trying not to even breathe. He felt as if he moved even an inch, something in the space between them would open, betray him, swallow him whole, and he’d have no defense, no cover to stop it.

Desmond stared at Albert for a moment longer—and then he sighed, and the shadow faded from his face, replaced by a look of exhaustion. He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a long stem blue rose and set it on the table. “Here. Belated Valentine’s present from Gordon, I guess. Nice meeting you, Dr. Rosenfield.”

Desmond left. Albert stayed behind, staring at the rose, his face stony and unmoving.  
\-----------------------------------------  
[1990. Philadelphia.]

He dreams so much now, since Cooper disappeared.

Since Diane left.

Since Sam snapped. Since Chet disappeared. Since Jeffries disappeared. Since Earle was lost.

_A beautiful evergreen forest just before sunrise._

_He stands at the bank of a river at the top of an enormous waterfall. There’s a bend, so that the river curves away out of sight into the trees on the left, and drops off into nothingness of the falls of the right._

_Something floats downstream from the bend and catches on a rock. In the dark it appears to be a log, but after he looks closer, he realizes it’s a body, wrapped in some sort of plastic. He goes out into the rapids, wades his way through deep water to reach the person. He begins pulling them to shore, fighting to stay standing against the current so that he wouldn’t be swept away with them over the falls._

_He drags them to shore, falls to the ground, pulls back the plastic. It’s the Palmer girl. Dead. Cold and gray, just like she had been on the exam table in that mortuary basement. He sits back, tearing up, wishing he could have done more for her--found more for her, revealed more for her. He looks around, tries to think about what he might be able to do now, now that the human agents of the dark forces of this awful place weren't around to take her, to inhibit his work--_

_But he realizes, dull and defeated, that here, where there was no exam table, no tools, no lab--here, where there is only nothing--there really is nothing he can do for her now, except offer her the dignity of a proper burial._

_He’s about to carry her away from the bank when something else floats around the bend. Another body, free floating with no plastic, floating past rocks and logs toward the open mouth of the falls. He leaves the girl behind and runs out again to catch the body, and discovers it's a young boy, dark haired and frail, and Albert pulls him ashore too. Checks the child’s pulse; miraculously, he’s still alive, but severely injured--burned, somehow--and in need of immediate attention._

_He’s thinking about what he could possibly do to save this boy, when something stirs in his peripheral vision from the river--_

_Then they start coming, body after body from upstream, bloodied, tortured, burned, flayed, some still alive, some not. So many he could never catch them all alone. Hundreds of bodies from upstream, rushing down the river toward the falls. He runs back out into the river, splashing, fighting the current; some of them wash past him over into nothingness as he drags others to shore, the selection of who is caught and who is lost seemingly arbitrary and senseless. The river runs red._

_He can’t save them all alone. No one ever could._

_He runs in and out of the river, fighting and dragging bodies both dead and alive, until he is completely exhausted, on his hands and knees on the bank, covered in blood and river water and mud, unable to move from exhaustion and cold as more bodies continue to rush past. Some of the people he’s managed to pull out of the river are rapidly being lost to injury and exposure. It is impossible to tend to their wounds or shock. To save one from death would be to lose an infinite number to the void of the falls._

_Finally he collapses. He screams. He yells for help that someone will come, that someone will help him save these people. He is waiting for somebody. For a time there is no answer. But then, miraculously, someone does come—a young woman wearing a black dress, whose face is hidden by a golden white light. She stands there in front of Albert, doing nothing. He screams again—this time in rage—demanding to know how she could stand there when all of these people were dying—or worse, being lost to the void of the falls._

_She is quiet and calm as he rages. She kneels, and puts her hand on Albert’s cheek. And then he stops screaming, confronted suddenly with an awesome and overwhelming power radiating from within her. Something he has wanted to serve, something he has sought in principle. Love. Complete, whole, all-encompassing, radiant. He realizes he is crying. Speechless. Overpowered._

_And then the young woman speaks:_

_“Albert Rosenfield,_  
_Will you stay here and keep pulling us out of the river one by one,_  
_Or will you come upstream with me to fight the dragon that is taking and killing all of these people?"_

_Suddenly there is a shaking, a roaring, a blinding fiery light of earth-shattering detonation—and then for one infinitesimal, atomic fraction of a section, he sees it._

_It is unspeakable._

He awakes, screaming and sweating, and rolls over to the side of the bed, and vomits.  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[2001. Washington, D.C.]

“So what did you decide, Albert?”

“What?”

“Our new greenhorn.”

“Oh, right.” Albert opened his briefcase and removed a personnel folder, opened it. “Her profile’s impressive all right, but Gordon--she’s in high school.”

“Won’t be forever. Look at those numbers, Albert.”

They _were_ remarkable. ESP in particular was off the charts... But still. She was a child.

“You don’t think pulling a file on a high school senior is a bit premature? We have no idea what she’ll be like in five years.”

“Albert, I know what I need, and I know when I’ve found it. I was right about you and I’m right about her.”

“That’s different, Gordon. She’s 18. You found my file after I had been in the Bureau for over a year, with actual experience under my belt.”

“Is that what I told you?” A short chuckle of bewilderment. “Wonder why I said that.”

Albert blinks, frowns slightly. There’s something very offputting about this.

“Is that not true?”

“Of course not. I had your file pulled before even your first day at Yale.” A pause. “Wish I could say I found Cooper, but Agent Earle gets credit for that one—only good thing he ever did for the project--“

And then suddenly there’s some sort of psychic thud, like a giant boulder being dropped into the middle of their conversation. The cavalier way in which Gordon makes such an offhand comment about… _that_ , is a jolting, nauseating catapult into a past Albert had just begun to put behind him. It is particularly indigestible and intolerable when they hadn’t even talked about Cooper, casually or in earnest, for almost 10 years.

There’s a long, dead silence that follows as the word “Cooper” grows larger and larger between them. Albert stares down at the table, his face hot, suddenly wanting nothing more than to leave. He can’t see what Gordon’s face is doing, but can see his fingers tapping the table’s surface in his peripheral vision.

Finally Gordon breaks the silence, and tries to continue his previous train of thought.

“… So I’m going to call McDonnell, and have a recruiter be sent down to her school’s job fair. Plant the seed early. I’m going to depend on you to make sure it gets watered down the road.”

Albert looks up, makes eye contact with Gordon stonily, but doesn’t answer.

Gordon looks at him with an investigative squint for a long moment, as if he’s weighing something in his mind. He looks like he’s about to say something—but then makes some sort of internal decision, and claps a hand on Albert’s shoulder, introducing a new conversational topic instead. “Before I forget. I’ve got back to back meetings at the White House until tomorrow, so I won’t be back in the office until late on Friday. Wondering if you could watch my inbox, pick up anything that doesn’t look like it should be left out.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll pick it up from you when I get back.”

“Okay.”

“All right.” Another pause, punctuated by a short squeeze on the shoulder, and the Gordon releases him to leave. “See you Friday, Albert.”

Albert is silent as Gordon leaves.

_See you Friday, boss._


End file.
